Many organizations haven’t delved into social media yet; you are not alone. You have probably read some guides telling everything you need to know on how to get started but while it is easy to write down the five steps to using social media it is exponentially harder to actually get started or convince decision makers to spend time or money on it.

So, what do you DO now?

Start with your personal social media brand. Get on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter and start listening. This will give you personally a presence and help make you more comfortable selling social media to your organization. It might even give you some real world examples to share with your organization. This is the Twitter sign up page. You will need a username (use your real name so your firends can find you easily), a password and your email address. After you sign up go to http://www.twitter.com/ryanpaulsmith and click follow. Then underneath the “what are you doing” type in “@ryanpaulsmith Hey Ryan, joining twitter after reading your blog”. I respond and your life will never be the same again……

Second, start small. Get a Twitter account for your company. Don’t try to invest the time it takes to run a good blog (even poor blogs take time and energy, ask me!) or even to get a branded presentable facebook page. Twitter will give you a presence, a voice and a way to interact. This interaction will allow to gain insight to guide which next steps are right for your specific situation.

This is a great post of some guidelines that let you know if what you are doing or planning on doing on Twitter will be accepted.

This is my favorite set of “rules” for the beginning Twitterers. These guidelines will get you started in the right direction, especially the first rule. Not everyone will use twitter the same, some celebrities will follow very few but have tens of thousand of followers while using twitter to broadcast more than have a conversation. Others will not be interested in how many followers they get as they will be using Twitter to communicate with a small group of “real-life” friends.

Because social media is so new there are rooms for many different styles; don’t let someone tell you you are doing things the wrong way before they know your goal!!

Retailers, now is the the time to start testing and building your social media presence to impact sales for the 2009 Holiday Shopping season.

You have been too busy dealing with 2008, but you know must get started or it will be to late. Social media is not a radio campaign that you can just turn on and off, it takes time to build a following and gain the trust of consumers.

Many haven’t started utilizing social media yet because they are simply overwhelmed at the volume and diversity of options. Please keep reading this blog as we will tackle some of the who’s, how to’s and why’s of getting started with Social Media.

Your fist step is to sign up for a Twitter account if you don’t already have one. http://twitter.com It is a very simple sign up process. You need to pick a twitter handle (your name works best), create a password, and enter you email. Really, that simple.

As you analyze your 2008 Holiday Marketing, include exploring social media as one of your next steps to improve Holiday 2009. For a guide through the social media landscape keep coming back to this blog or email ryanpaulsmith @ Verizon . net.